Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt has some strong words for the paparazzi. In an interview on NBC's "Today" show Tuesday, Pitt said: "Let me be very blunt: I hate them. I hate these people. I don't understand . . . that they do that for a living." Pitt said there should be laws against celebrity photographers who "climb over your walls wearing camouflage and calling out your kids' names as you're trying to take them to school."

Brad PITT is getting younger every day. It's a tantalizing hook for a film, isn't it? What if your hero was born an old man, only to grow younger every day, from wrinkles to wrinkles, so to speak -- don't they say that all little babies look like Winston Churchill? That's the premise behind David Fincher's upcoming "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," which stars Brad Pitt going from geezer-hood to infancy, and falling in love with Cate Blanchett along the way.

It's easy to get celebrities to show up for a cause. Follow-through is another matter. When it happens, it makes all the difference. Take Brad Pitt's yearlong effort to assist residents of New Orleans' ravaged Lower 9th Ward return to their own homes.

The days may be numbered for the old Brad Pitt -- the Hollywood heartbreaker, the absurdly handsome leading man who couldn't seem to keep his shirt on in a movie for more than five minutes, the prankster who once ran amok through the streets of L.A. in a gorilla suit. History. Outta here. Going, going, gone.

Every great western has a duel, and there's a showdown at the center of Brad Pitt's new movie about gunslinger Jesse James. The struggle hinged on the film's tone and length -- at one point its running time was more than three hours -- according to several people close to the production. But running time wasn't the main issue. The thornier challenge was to come up with a cut of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" that satisfied audiences and Warner Bros.

Put in simplest terms, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" is a film whose reach exceeds its grasp. Hugely ambitious and not without moments of success, this indulgent 2 hour and 40 minute epic ends up as unwieldy as its elongated title. It's a movie in love with itself, and few things are more fatal than that.

Russell Crowe will replace Brad Pitt in the film adaptation of the British miniseries "State of Play," Universal Studios announced Monday. Pitt had been slated to star opposite Edward Norton, Helen Mirren and Rachel McAdams for director Kevin Macdonald ("The Last King of Scotland") but left the project citing script concerns, a problem exacerbated by the Writers Guild of America strike. When he departed, Universal said it was considering suing the actor.

IN Hollywood, causes tend to divide into the popular and the deeply personal. You usually can recognize the difference because the former come from the pages of next month's glossy magazines and the latter right from the heart. For all the time he spends on the tabloids' covers, for example, Brad Pitt actually is pretty much a homebody, and his activism grows out of the years he's spent exploring and understanding the role domestic architecture plays in individual lives.

A Santa Monica judge granted a request Thursday by Angelina Jolie to change the names of her two children to reflect that Brad Pitt intends to become their adoptive father. The names of the children will become Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt and Maddox Chivan Jolie-Pitt. Zahara celebrated her first birthday on Jan. 8. Maddox, a boy, is 4. Pitt's publicist, Cindy Guagenti, said on Jan. 11 that Jolie is pregnant with Pitt's child.

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have an entire government on their side in the latest celebrity versus paparazzi skirmish as they await the birth of their child in seclusion at a resort in Namibia. The Namibian Embassy in Pretoria tells journalists seeking visas for Namibia to cover the birth of the eagerly awaited celebrity baby that they must have permission from Pitt and Jolie in writing before they will be allowed into the country.